Painting the Town Red (Bull)

Monday, June 22, 2009 -- Smiles and laughter rang from the Red Bull pit garage at the end of the last British Grand Prix to be held at the Silverstone circuit. Things looked ominous for the other competitors as Sebastian Vettel dominated the British Grand Prix from the word go. If practice showed Red Bull as a strong contestant for the race, then qualifying left no doubt that Vettel would indeed be looking for maximum points and the highest spot on the podium.

The Red Bull RB5 looked like a winner the moment Vettel went into the lead at the start of the British Grand Prix. Two laps later, he was leaving Rubens Barrichello behind and was building up a sure-shot lead that would see him end the race remarkably ahead of the rest of the pack. Team-mate Mark Webber also hit his strides once he was ahead of Barrichello at the end of the first round of pit stops.

Once there, second spot was stuck to Webber's driving and the rest of the pack was left fighting for the remaining point spots as Barrichello all but made third place his own. Almost 26 seconds separated Vettel from Barrichello while championship leader Jenson Button couldn't manage much of a fight back until about the last ten laps of the race when he put the pressure on the Ferrari of Felipe Massa and the Williams of Nico Rosberg in Fourth and Fifth places.

Despite cutting the gap, Button had to contend with 6th place as both Massa and Rosberg held on without much trouble.

On the fast and unrelenting Silverstone track, most of the drivers ended up in damage limitation mode as the tyres were fast succumbing to the driving conditions. Vettel himself gave up almost 4 seconds, in the final ten laps, in a bid to make his tyres last the distance.

The Toyota of Jarno Trulli came in at seventh place with Kimi Raikkonen in the other Ferrari, splitting the two Toyotas. Timo Glock came in at 9th spot with Giancarlo Fisichella grabbing and holding on to complete the top-10 lineup in his Force India.

Amongst the big names, defending champion Lewis Hamilton continued his poor season with a dismal finish in 16th place after a spin on lap 43. Fernando Alonso only managed a 14th place finish ahead of Nick Heidfeld and behind Robert Kubica in the BMW Saubers.